Winston Churchill once referred to Clement Attlee as “A sheep in sheep’s clothing.” As I grow weary, old, fast approaching 45, more and more sheep seem to cross my path – mostly in the world of banking but in other areas too.

We all have small dreams. Mine from the age of 23 – sat in a New York hotel room listening to the blaring taxis down below – was to write a novel. A work about ‘the street’; society if you will. Despite my best efforts – five of them in fact – I ultimately failed.

And so began the drift – into table tennis reports after a ‘knock’ with friends. Into radio plays, children’s story poems, interviews with who I deemed to be the more interesting colleagues or pariahs at my place of work and short stories. Anything and everything: a lovely excuse to write and feel good, worthy even.

I recall approaching The Bolton News’s Neil Bonnar on 1^st April 2013. I padded the email proposal with talk of New Journalism which unofficially began in 1962: Tom Wolfe picking up a copy of Esquire and reading a piece on Joe Louis, written by Gay Talese.

The article was mesmerising, intimate – a form of literary or ‘short story’ journalism. It was a turning point indeed, but such art was to be hounded out of fashion by 1981; fashion – that villainous word.

A few notable voices still held the torch aloft – the irreverent and mighty, Hugh McIlvanney on this side of the Atlantic for one; his prose allowing you to swim across the ably-depicted sporting scenes as if you were God. When you read McIlvanney’s work, you are forced to stop, gasp, relay the word combinations over and over in your head such is their allure.

My comparatively feeble samples – nine of them written between 2007 and 2008 – were included in the email to Bonnar in an attempt to ‘firm up’ negotiations and show him my wares, my ‘Del Boy’ goods. I had a habit of getting home after matches, taking a shower and then staying up ‘til about midnight dissecting what had unfolded.

I invented boyish nicknames for my friends, my opponents: Bazooka, Hustler, Alamo, Raider, The Destroyer, The Reverend; simple alliteration usually behind the grand title as if I imagined us walking out to lights and music.

Bonnar phoned me up one evening not too long after. The deal was cut. I was to follow in the footsteps of fine predecessors, Alan Calvert and Ian Wheeldon.

“Just try to be less flamboyant,” he advised me, referring to the work I had sent in (www.thesportswriter1.com).

I understood this. I didn’t entirely rail against it. Papers have codes to follow. Crossing the line into the semi-fantastical was unnecessary – it risked reputational damage.

Now, after writing a total of sixty-seven pieces for the paper – quite an apt number – I feel it is time to step down. The joy in sitting alongside players from the Premier Division through to Division Four has been a true privilege. Letting me into their modest venues has been kind and not always trumpeted in the manner it should have been.

New projects await me including the better nurturing of my family. I hope there is someone to pass the baton to in this rich, sporting garden.

People do good things. Help the blind across the road. Pick up change for old ladies. Hold doors open out of courtesy rather than coincidence.

Some volunteer. Give ten or twenty years of their life to causes they believe in. And occasionally, just occasionally, recognition shows up at the door.

Through luck, perception or merit people are handed certificates, badges, scrolls and chances to further their philanthropy.

Karen Edwards OBE is a case in point. Chief Executive of the Bolton Lads and Girls Club (BL&GC) and part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2012, she has put in a long shift, been imaginative, dogged and tenacious since the 1990s.

Spearheading a team (more recently) in control of a circa £3m budget, Ms Edwards has mostly looked after the coffers well – built relationships, developed her soft language skills with particular emphasis on words such as ‘opportunity’, ‘pathways’ and ‘evaluation’.

Her efforts overall should be furiously applauded.

But there is a gaping hole; a hole which only started to appear towards the middle of August. And the table tennis community is at a loss to explain it.

When the list of teams was compiled and sorted into five divisions for the forthcoming season, one noticeable absence was evident: BL&GC – the oldest club in the league.

Why? Digging has begun in earnest in an attempt to get a satisfactory answer yet words hung together collectively in the form of responses can be an ugly business – they turn into racketeers, miscreants, contortionists, any number of twisting and bending creations.

The general take thus far is this: There are two RBs at the Lads & Girls Club – Rachel Burke (Sport Development Manager) and Roger Bertrand (their only qualified table tennis coach). Ms Burke, a glance at on-line archives reveals, has been photographed in celebratory pose alongside Ms Edwards on numerous occasions. Mr Bertrand has not. Ms Burke, being a member of the Senior Management Team, has the ear of Ms Edwards. Mr Bertrand does not.

The recent decision at the club therefore to replace competitive league table tennis with a ‘Try Train’ model and somewhat insular youth club versus youth club scheme must be put down to blinkeredness at the top and wilful neglect of those ‘in the know’.

Whilst this summary is not entirely without sporting bias or conjecture, it does hold water.

The grand myth concerning Cassius Clay’s fourth round knock down at the hands of Henry Cooper in 1963 is that Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) glanced over at Elizabeth Taylor, who was sitting at ringside.

Such a story, whether true or not, is marvellous. In a similar vein, it can only be assumed that Ms Edwards in August of this year – whilst in a high-level meeting – glanced over at a spectre and was sufficiently overcome that she acceded to a proposal – perhaps from her Sport Development Manager or her Youth Club Manager – that would deny at least four young players league table tennis.

The BL&GC’s new schemes may have their place but when marinated in the disillusionment of players about to break through in what would have been a key season (Jack Daniels 2012/13 [35%], 2013/14 [65%]) such plans can only be recorded under the heading ‘Folly’.

They may even result in the wholesale abandonment of half a generation of players unless designed or mapped out more clearly.

What happens if we’re all bluffing, living half a life, churning out an existence which bows to the demands of politics and business?

Philip Larkin said “the eyes clear with age”. He was right. As a consequence, we begin to shut out the noise, no longer chase the pointless – steer clear of bogus thrills.

Table tennis remedies some of the hurt, acts as a part-time panacea, transports the mind to a better place. In its rhythm is joy, health, a beautiful nothingness, a disappearing act.

People play the game with wit accompanying them, the occasional growl and the odd bit of controversy. A night is rarely complete or perfect – just riddled with more good than bad if driving home with a smile.

It is ‘controversy’ which fascinates me the most.

Sport can be a truly dazzling thing capable of mending relations as in the case of the Sino-American thaw in 1971; Cold War tensions eased by the friendship between table tennis players, Zhuang Zedong and Glenn Cowan.

It can also muddy itself, exampled in 1969 by the Marylebone Cricket Club’s refusal to allow the mixed-race player, Basil D’Oliveira play for England against South Africa thus indirectly condoning the apartheid regime.

Boxing, of course, is not without its demons – unbeaten US fighter, Joe Louis (24-0) defeated by Germany’s Max Schmeling in 1936; Schmeling lauded by the Nazi Party as a symbol of Aryan supremacy.

American writer, Langston Hughes echoed part of his nation’s mood at the time: “I walked down Seventh Avenue and saw grown men weeping like children, and women sitting on the curbs with their head in their hands. All across the country that night when the news came out that Joe was knocked out, people cried.”

Such magnitude and meaning I have yet to witness in the table tennis halls of Bolton, however it prompts bigger questions over politics and rights within sport. On the outside, sport has embraced physical disabilities and differences. At a local level I regularly play against Asians, whites, blacks, people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and autism. It is the norm – nothing unusual, nothing new, something that arouses only bigots.

But start talking politics, start getting inside a person, and it often ends in a rumble. Some people confuse reasoned arguments (or dialectics) with feuds. Some are hard-wired not to listen at all – see between the black and the white, or the numerous religious scriptures.

Little known is that Schmeling actually had a Jewish American manager (Joe Jacobs) but was trapped by the ideology of the day. Muhammad Ali, not all hero, was so consumed by the Nation of Islam that he chose not to mourn the assassination of the reformed Malcolm X in 1965. Two years later, a maturer Ali refused to be drafted for the Vietnam War, laudably costing him his freedom.

This week’s column was meant to be about a leftwing table tennis player who I happened to meet earlier this year. I then realised – and he concurred – that by printing his name and espousing his thoughts it might compromise his position of employment.

The default 21^st century political position is not yet common sense and kindliness it would appear, but something still aligned to the interests of the day – a never-ending track to nowhere.

Perhaps one day change will come after the remaining dogs are driven out. Perhaps.

If there was to be a raid on the table tennis community – bats stolen, an Italian Job of sorts – then it would be here, outside The Crown (1 Chorley New Road). Or a mile up the road (B6226) at the Bank Top Brewery Ale House (36 Church Street).

Both public houses are frequented by the cream of Bolton’s table tennis world. Both offer sustenance to weary players intent on forgetting the more rueful moments of their drills and practice sessions.

Notable patrons – be they politicians, artists or sportsmen – have congregated in certain spots since time immemorial. Public officials wag their tongues in The Red Lion, the Marquis of Granby and the Commons Strangers’ Bar in and around Westminster. Writers latch on to the faded footprints of the literary masters whose regular haunts included Kennedy’s in Dublin, the Vesuvio Café in San Francisco and Les Deux Magots in Paris.

Inside Horwich’s modest watering holes sit two motley crews – paddles thrown in the boots of their cars or lovingly placed in the glove compartments, sweat temporarily masked by the deodorant from a selection of canisters.

The Alan Ingerson crew generally comprises Dave Scowcroft, Steve Hathaway and occasional invitee Steve Barber. Promotion and relegation in the ranks this season has meant a swapping of status for the players; Barber giving up his Premier Division mantle – allowing the Hilton ‘B’ gents a shot at survival in 2014/15. For Ingerson, banditing his way around Division Three in 2012/13 after a long lay-off, it is a minor miracle.

Opposite the Parish Church of Holy Trinity they convene – on the chairs, stools and red-chequered banquette of the Ale House, elbows shifting in order to raise their pints. Formerly the Brown Cow, this new-found table tennis haven and resting place is a curious modern phenomenon, a refurbishment gamble left to the locals to judge.

It borrows some of its grandeur from the Francis Octavius Bedford gothic-designed Holy Trinity across the road, yet there are still small touches which clamour for your attention: the beautifully curved bar, the simple chalk boards (Today’s Real Cider/Summertime Specials), the square lamp shades and the twenty-three white light switches on a single brass plate. Also, the Sterling & Noble clock with Roman numerals – tilted slightly to the right, but beguilingly so.

Away from here, from the ash and sycamore that greet you as you exit, it is a roll downhill, then onto the flat before arriving at The Crown. Motion never quite leaves you if sat at the front of this establishment in the bay window – the old Wigan B5238 sign on the grass roundabout outside directing drivers new to the parish.

A fir tree is plonked on this spot awaiting Christmas decorations that will brighten up the area. For now, however, Brett Haslam and his seven borrachos (Dennis Collier, John Bradbury, Dave Smith, Jim Chadwick, Mick Dore, Phil Riley and Steve Barber) provide the necessary exuberance.

This isn’t a fancy pub. In many ways it is trepidatious – the sign on the wall next to the huge sash windows stating PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE THE CURTAIN. The tables, separated like planets, orbit the bar. Candelabras hang from the ceiling. Flashing fruit machines beckon victims. Willow-pattern plates snuggle up next to Horwich Harriers.

Walk in late on a Thursday and you witness history: table tennis’s Ernest Hemingway gabbing away.

Empires fall. Bit by bit they disintegrate – marry their mortar with the dust and dirt on the ground. The Ottomans, the Romans, the Persians, the Mongols – all had their era, their might, a trail of subjects and slaves; hubristic legacies now largely forgotten, yet represented by potent dents in the minds of historians and archeologists.

The Bolton Lads’ Club began life in 1889 as the Children’s Bolton Club. It was the same year that gave birth to the Eiffel Tower, Adolf Hitler and Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

Founded by two church leaders and three industrialists, acutely aware of the plight of young, cotton mill children and their need, initially, just to be “able to wash, eat and sleep in peace away from their looms”, it served a distinguished role as a hostel.

Less than a decade later, the stampede began: “They came in their hundreds, for of all animals, lads are perhaps the most gregarious. They came to meet their fellows under conditions somewhat more comfortable and convenient than their natural meeting place, the street. They initially came for amusement and for games and for nothing else, and if we had told them it was our intention to improve them they would certainly not have come.

“But it is interesting how quickly their attitude to the club has changed, it is no longer our club, it is theirs, and we merely manage it for them. It is no longer a mere place of amusement, but is a place which plays a real part in their lives. It is a place for honour and for success.”

In 1947 table tennis entered the Lads’ Club’s doors. Bark Street – the old location – welcomed the fevered game, entered its recruits into the Bolton League. And so, the beautiful sport was inaugurated, two decades after the first World Championships in London and the year the International Table Tennis Federation or ITTF was formed (1926).

This led to a crossover point in 1952 – Japan’s World Champion, Hiroji Satoh signalling the end of the hard bat / pimpled rubber era and the rise of the sponge bat. From wiff-waff, to ping-pong, to table tennis sophisticates, the game developed – reducing the net height from 6 ¾” to 6”, introducing US celluloid balls and embracing technology on an unprecedented scale.

The Lads’ Club evolved by introducing girls into its ranks. In 2002, Team BLGC moved to its new £5million premises on Spa Road – the rear of the building resting impressively on White Lion Brow.

Inside, Tomorrows Citizens roam. Sports and games are played – basketball, pool, Xbox, football, boxing, gym. Underneath the Harrison Burton Climbing Wall, however, is a pitiful sight: two TT tables. (There used to be five permanently unfolded.) Numbers are short. Coach Roger Bertrand (07530 690985) and volunteer Ian Monk (07903 827703) have just three 12-18 year olds for the forthcoming September-April season. They are, in many ways, the Blackpool FC of the table tennis league.

What has gone wrong? How can they resurrect the glory days (2012/13) when their ‘A’ team finished a credible 6^th in Division Four?

By its very nature, a youth club loses players. Suddenly, there is nothing to replenish the squad though. The feeder club’s diet is now a mirage.

Bold/passionate, empire-saving youngsters required: Mondays 5-7pm & Thursdays 6-9pm. Bertrand is waiting.

Summer League Final:

Ivory Toasters       12
Hilton C                     10

In the panoramic slide of action inside the Hilton Centre, it is as if a rainbow has fallen. The coloured tops are many, the mannerisms assorted, the styles like a succession of rival comedians.

On the top wall are pinned seven notices: IMPORTANT REMINDER ABOUT SHOES; PLEASE REMEMBER – TURN ON ALL FANS; etc. One imagines they were last read many years ago. One imagines that even if they were waved around by an air stewardess pre-match, the players would still be singularly focused – not bidden by the flat charms of instructive words.

The summer league final is an important marker of talent. It defines a limited field of entrants, affords them the chance of playing against loftier or dubious opposition. And yet the winners are neither recorded in the annual handbook nor engraved on a panel out of reach of sticky hands.

They should be – if only to attract a deeper body of competitors.

No matter. The finalists are of good calibre. Representing the Ivory Toasters are Krishna Chauhan and Wilson Parker – combined age 33; players pulled from a whippersnapper enclave. Hilton C – Chris Naylor and Annie Hudson – are veterans by comparison (73), although mostly loaded up with Naylor’s fifty years, keen reptilian eyes and quick-talking mien.

He kneels and chats beforehand with Division One foe, Mark Speakman, toys with a bottle of water, thinks not of the matches about to unfold but of something more serene.

Hudson, his playing partner, pretty feet bound up in green-trimmed socks and purple Nike, has an air of cross-legged relaxation about her. The kids opposite are nothing she has not seen before.

‘Are you ready?’ comes the prompt from Parker, his hair quiffed to the side, looking dandy – surely washed less than two hours ago.

He steps up. Opposite is Hudson, the tormentor, the British League doyenne – not to be fazed, not to be out-swaggered by the pumped-up game of Parker.

Except, Parker leads 11-9, 6-0. Hudson appears ragged – hitting too many long; a slight look of disgust permeating her face. Composure rarely leaves her, troops out of town, yet she seems wounded by the Parker artillery – unsettled and faint.

A nick of the table reduces matters to 6-2, Parker ‘net and off’ 7-5, a trademark Hudson positional shot: 10-8. Then comes the Hudson resilience, the know-how: four straight points – Parker tossing away the second set (10-12) as if on an agitated horse.

Naylor calls a tactical break – has a word with his recovering lioness. We then see the new Annie, the old Annie – whichever makes this game look so easy. Barely moving, it is as if every ball TomToms to her blade. Parker falls, loses sets three and four 10-12, 9-11.

‘I just choked – whole game went down the drain.’ A glimmer of honesty beneath the often tart mouth – a player’s fortune reversed within minutes. This is not football, or cricket or any of those ‘long’ games. It is table tennis – judge, jury and executioner; the swing of a bat critical and unforgiving.

Parker “The Rottweiler” is fortunate to have the calm, southpaw Chauhan in his camp. Apoplectic tirades suggest otherwise during their doubles loss (2-3), but Chauhan “The Labrador” – two singles wins (3-2 versus Naylor and Hudson) – is instrumental despite reigning champ, Parker’s timely skinning of Naylor (3-0).

“The dread of getting old is a universal, if intermittent preoccupation. ‘As I give thought to the matter,’ said Cicero, ‘I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age: first, it withdraws us from active accomplishment; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.’”

2014 will not come around again – neither in number, nor in its sweeping assailment of great names. Football has mourned the imperious Alfredo Di Stefano (aged 88), the exquisite Tom Finney (91) and the explosive Eusebio (71). Politics/journalism has lost the ameliorative Bob Crow (52), the messianic Tony Benn (88) and the outspoken Joe McGinniss (71).

One could compare the year – if ballsy enough – with 2005 when literature lamented the departure of Arthur Miller (89), Hunter S. Thompson (67) and Saul Bellow (89) – men whose perception of that around them astounded and left in wonderment the reader and listener.

Squeezed into this life are naivety, easy optimism, flair, fear and the wisdom of knowing that we know nothing. Beyond the pallor and impoverishment of old age, however, are those ready to defy Cicero’s first cause; players and sportsmen for whom creaking knees and ravaged minds are modest hindrances.

Across eight table tennis clubs, the septuagenarians stretch – the two octogenarians in the league, Brian Hall and Colin Roberts respectively ruminating over the “continued challenge…obsession” and the perhaps unmatched feat of winning “seven Ron Hindle trophies”.

The bug that is table tennis surpasses the doom-like proclamations of hardy philosophers (“Wrinkles are harbingers of a slide to nothingness, not marks of a transcendence to come.”) It casts a wand over leaden feet and comfy chairs. The tales of the ‘oldies’, of the players that keep on running are but specks in a whirling universe, yet they must be heard:

Alan Bradshaw – “I did my 2-years national service from 1954 to 1956 [during which time] I won a lot of regimental table tennis contests. After winning thirteen competitions in the NAAFI canteen, I was advised not to enter any more.”

Neville Singh – “I used to play on a rolling and pitching ship in the Atlantic Ocean.”

Ian Wheeldon – “There was a room under the local church where we could practise at any time…collecting the key from the vicarage.”

Geoff Rushton – “Coached my son, Andrew to the Commonwealth Games silver medal (2006).”

Richard Reading – “First played table tennis at Bovington (Army) Camp in 1960. It led me to becoming an international athlete.”

The birth certificate of Dave Parker will be scrutinised next month. He will be the newest member of the clan, of the 70+ brigade and to Brian Hall a mere pup.